176 RARE VISITANTS. 



believing it to be a valid species. But there can be 

 little doubt that the name capistratus has been be- 

 stowed upon a small specimen of L. ridibundus in a 

 transitional or accidental state of plumage ; cf. Thomp- 

 son, Nat. Hist. Irel. (Birds), vol. iii. pp. 334-340. 



Fam. PROCELLARID^E. 

 DUSKY SHEABWATEK. Puffinus obscurus (Gmelin). 



Hob. West coast of Africa to Cape of Good Hope ; rare in 

 the Mediterranean. 



One, Valentia Harbour, co. Kerry, llth May 1853 : Yarrell, 



Hist. Brit. Birds, vol. iii. p. 659. In the collection of 



Mrs. Blackburn. 

 One, Earsham, near Bungay, Suffolk, 10th April 1858 : 



Stevenson, Zoologist, 1858, p. 6096. 

 One taken alive, mouth of the Ouse, near Lynn, 26th July, 



1851 : Southwell, Naturalist, 1851, p. 189. In the Lynn 



Museum. This is the young of P. major. J. H. Gurney, MS. 

 A pair taken alive, Plymouth Sound, llth Dec. 1852 : Banker, 



Naturalist, 1853, p. 204. 

 One, near Berry Head, South Devon, Feb. 1869 : De Hugel, 



Zoologist, 1869, p. 1720. 



Obs. Under the head of Cinereous or Dusky Shear- 

 water, certain birds of this genus have been recorded 

 as above ; but it is extremely doubtful whether they 

 are all of one species, P. obscurus, Gmelin. On the 

 contrary, I suspect that only the first on the list is 

 of that species, and that the others are either the young 

 of P. major (cf. antea, p. 79), perhaps in the plumage 

 of the specimen described as fuliginosus by Strickland 



